SIOUX CITY, IA -
It's an ongoing debate that's angered many Catholics, birth control mandates in President Obama's new health care bill, but Friday the Obama administration offered a compromise.
President Obama's proposed solution allows female employees of religious institutions to still receive birth control for free.
Those institutions won't have to pay for it, but insurance companies will.
Up until now President Obama's health care law has called for employers to offer free contraception.
That initiative caused nothing short of an outrage from members of certain religious groups, who said the mandate goes against their values, including the Catholic Church.
Friday the Sioux City Diocese's Bishop said the compromise may be a good first step, but the issue isn't just about contraceptives.
"It's a limited and unclear compromise and it doesn't change the need to really focus on the issue, which is religious liberty," said Most Reverend R. Walker Nickless, Bishop of the Diocese of Sioux City.
Some Republicans are accepting the new compromise, but they're still vowing to repeal the President's health care law.
The change takes effect in August of 2013.
Twenty-eight states had already required health insurance plans to cover birth control before the federal regulations were issued.
